


on top of the sands

by gayporwave



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-25 03:38:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16189277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayporwave/pseuds/gayporwave
Summary: Ned and Duck get trapped in a bunker together.It goes better than expected.





	on top of the sands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Panny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panny/gifts).



When the door chime to the Cryptonomica rings unexpectedly, Duck is immensely grateful for the break in the monotony of the day.

His gratefulness slowly is replaced with concern when he spots the extremely distressed expression on the customer’s face and thoroughly sweat-soaked clothes.

Duck rarely has the day off and so, of course, Ned pounced on the opportunity, roping him and Aubrey into helping set up the Cryptonomica’s newest Mothman exhibit now that visitors to the Bigfoot exhibit have slowly trickled to a stop. It’s not that he really minds, considering he doesn’t do much on his days off and he’s glad to hang out with friends, but it’s the principle of the matter.

“Ma’am?” he calls out gently, striding over to the woman, a girl really, a teenager of maybe sixteen years whose eyes dart nervously around the shop. Her lightly tanned skin is flushed all over and her red-tinged eyes have a glazed over look about them. He doesn’t expect it at all when she jumps up after he taps on her shoulder when she doesn’t answer him right away.

“Um, shit,” the girl says running a hand down her face and wiping away at the sweat gathered on her brow. Her head darts back and forth, looking around the empty main room of the Cryptonomica as if searching for something. “Oh man, you’re not like a cop or anything are you?”

“Forest ranger actually,” he answers.

She swears slightly under her breath and shakes her head. “But like, not a cop right?” she repeats, emphasizing the word cop again.

Duck can’t help but raise an eyebrow at that, confused. “No, did you need any help? You look awfully stressed, is there something I can do for you Miss…?”

“Um, Jeanine. It’s Jeanine,” she says and then leans in closer, almost uncomfortably close, but Duck allows her to if only because asking her to keep some distance between them would probably be a little more rude than he’d like to be.

“Listen, man. I’m going to be real with you right now, I am like INCREDIBLY super high right now and I know saying that’s gonna sound real bad but like, there’s something real wrong with my friend, Gabriela. We were out in the woods smoking because like the last time we smoked in her basement, my mom found out and she grounded me for like 3 weeks, and it was so super fucking lame, and--”

Duck cuts her off before she can continue on rambling, “Miss Jeanine, if you could get to the point...”

Jeanine nods, looking a little embarrassed for herself before continuing. Her hands nervously picking at a stray thread hanging from the sleeve of her shirt. “Right, sorry. Anyway, we were smoking and just having a good time you know? Feeling ourselves and shit, and then something weird happened.”

She pauses and takes a deep breath before continuing, “There was this like...shadow? That climbed up on her and I thought I was seeing some shit, but then it started choking her? I tried to fight it off, but my hands were going right through it and I just got scared, and I ran to the nearest place I could find.”

When she finishes Jeanine starts sniffling, wet hot tears trailing down her face. “You’re not going to like tell my mom or anything, right?” she begs, wiping away her tears with the edge of the same sleeve she’d just been picking at.

Duck shakes his head slowly, frowning. He’s not about to snitch on a teenager for some weed, and if what he’s hearing is right then there might just be an abom out there. “No little lady, but can you do me a favor and wait here while I go get some more people and we can look for your friend?”

“Yeah, yeah, no problem.” Jeanine nods along, her eyes trail toward a glass exhibit displaying a horrible poorly taxidermied abomination that can only by the loosest definition be called a jackalope. “Um, I’m just gonna keep checking this stuff out, if that’s cool?”

“Yeah, super cool.”

With Jeanine occupied Duck heads toward the backroom, where Aubrey is moving boxes while Ned directs her from a plastic lawn chair, clearly not actually doing any of the heavy work himself. Aubrey waves down at him excitedly from where she’s standing on top of a stepladder while Ned tips his RC Cola in greeting when he comes in.

“What’s up Duck?” Aubrey asks nonchalant, still lugging around a box of some more trash Ned undoubtedly bought off of eBay.

Duck raises a brow at Ned who tips his RC Cola again and chugs the rest of the can. “I know the two of you are _real_ busy, but it looks like we might have another abom out here. I’ve got a girl, she’s pretty strung out right now but what she says fits the profile.”

“Oh shit,” Aubrey exclaims, and immediately drops the box of junk as Ned protests about the value of his inventory and lack of respect for his product.

“Well,” Ned sighs and cracks his knuckles after detaching himself from the lawn chair. “Let’s get to it.”

 

 

Leaves crunch beneath their feet as the three of them traverse the woods behind the Cryptonomica, Jeanine in tow, with only the moon hanging overhead and Duck’s flashlight as sources of light illuminating the dark woods.

“You said it was this way, right Jeanine?” Aubrey asks gently. Jeanine firmly latched onto her, the girl’s hand gripping tightly onto her own as they walk in tandem. Her steps are unsteady and if Duck had to hazard a guess she’s probably still stoned.

“Yeah.” She nods and then points toward the ground where a trail of empty dollar gas station cigarillo packets litter the floor and mark the way up to a small clearing in the woods. A large gnarled log covered in cigarette burns laying across the forest floor surrounded by more of the same packets, empty water and Gatorade bottles filled with tin foil, chip bags, and snuffed out roaches scattered around it.

“Yeesh,” Duck grumbles under his breath and shakes his head. “Kids these days can’t pick up after themselves?”

Ned bends down to pick up an empty Gatorade bottle with holes poked in it, sniffing it for a couple of seconds before letting it fall back to the ground again.

“Don’t just drop it.” Duck frowns shooting Ned a dirty look, who shrugs in return.

“It was already on the ground in the first place and if you’re volunteering to lug all of this trash back be my guest,” he gripes and with the tip of his boot rolls the bottle around thoughtfully. “Reminds me of when I was in high school, had a lot of fun those days. We used an apple though,” he laughs and then kicks the bottle away, sending it rolling across the forest floor.

“Oh I’m sure you did, Ned,” Aubrey snorts and winks at Duck, and he barely stifles a small chuckle.

“What?” Ned complains, sounding defensive. “What does that mean?”

“Well, you just seem like the type is all.” Aubrey pantomimes taking a hit from a bong, and Duck busts out laughing. Seconds later, Jeanine interrupts frantically tapping Aubrey’s shoulder and points toward the log. Duck can’t see anything notable aside from the trash.

“That’s where we were at, but she’s not there. I don’t understand…” Jeanine chokes out and starts tearing up again, her voice now frantic. “Oh god, did she die? Did I get her killed or something?”

Aubrey grimaces shaking her head and puts a calming hand on Jeanine’s shoulder.

“No, no. I’m sure she’s fine,” she reassures Jeanine. “Do you wanna head back to the Cryptonomica and maybe just relax there while we figure this out? Ned’s got some snacks and cola in the back room you can munch on.”

“Okay.” Jeanine nods and Duck elbows Ned before he can start to protest.

As soon as Jeanine is far enough to be out of earshot Aubrey starts questioning Duck. “So what did she say about the bombom? Like, what do we know?”

“Well, the _abomination_ ,” Duck corrects Aubrey; he absolutely _refuses_ to let bombom catch on. “Is some sort of shadow creature or something? I thought she was just seeing shit but then she mentioned that it started choking her friend, but I don’t see anything around he--” he says before the sound of leaves crunching behind him makes all three of them going on alert.

Their attention turns toward the source of the noise and they watch enraptured as another teenager, a girl, steps forward. Her gait looks distinctly off, unnaturally jerky and sluggish like a zombie in a horror movie, and Duck’s eyes trail down to where her shadow extends unnaturally. Expanding, contracting, and undulating, while portions of it crawl upward to coat her legs, covering them like loose sort of second skin.

Aubrey is the first to act.

“Gabriela?” she calls out and at Gabriela turns toward her. Her panic-stricken eyes wide and red-tinged not unlike Jeanine’s and the three of them watch in horror as her mouth moves slowly, silently forming words.

“Help me,” she mouths, before her eyes roll back and she drops suddenly to the ground like a puppet with its string cut. The Shadow wrapped around her exploding into rays of darkness that rapidly flee in every direction before any of them can move.

“ _Shit_ ,” Duck swears and rushes over to her, immediately bringing two fingers up to her neck to feel for her pulse. To his relief he can still feel it, though her skin feels strangely clammy to the touch. Once certain she’s alright, he bends down to lift her off the ground and immediately regrets the decision when his back starts to protest.

Aubrey and Ned hover around him nervously once he’s lifted Gabriela up fully.

“Is she….?” Ned asks, lips pressed into a tight line.

“Nah,” he shakes his head. “She’s alive. Just passed out, I’m gonna take her back to the Cryptonomica. I think the thing, whatever it is, is gone for now,” he sighs heavily. Figuring out how to fight a water abom was challenging enough, but shadows? “How in the hell are we going to fight a shadow?”

Aubrey grunts and kicks at another one of the empty water bottles in frustration. “I don’t know but we’ve gotta figure out how we’re going to play this off to the two of them.”

“Eh, the two of them were stoned right? We can just use that, bad trip and all,” Ned suggests.

 

When they return to the Cryptonomica Gabriela in tow, it’s empty except for the faint sound of one of Ned’s movies playing in the background. Aubrey opens the door to the back room and there’s Jeanine, reclined back in one of Ned’s chairs watching one of his old 50’s movie intently while digging her hand through a bag of his chips.

“Oh,” she sounds surprised to see them and doesn’t even tear her focus away from the movie, still shoving handfuls of chips into her mouth while she watches. “Did you find her?”

“Yeah,” Duck shakes his head and gently sets Gabriela down in the nearest chair, careful not to wake her. “She, um…”

“Had a panic attack and passed out,” Aubrey cuts in, saving Duck from embarrassing himself by telling another spectacularly shitty lie. He shoots her grateful look from across the room.

“Er, yeah a panic attack,” Duck mumbles in affirmation. “We didn’t see any shadow creature so maybe the two of you were just having a bad trip or something?”

Jeanine nods sagely and speaks through a mouthful of chips, “Yeah...that makes sense. I’m sorry I freaked all of you guys out.” She looks down at the half-empty bag of Doritos. “...And ate all your chips.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

 

“God, you know, screw this abomination in particular,” Ned huffs, doubled over with both hands on his knees, panting as he pauses to catch his breath.

Duck can’t particularly say he disagrees.

The three of them took days trying to trap it somewhere where they could control the exact amount of light and block off its exit. The solution had been a bunker that a friend of a friend of Pigeon’s had access to. The lack of windows, ease of setting up spotlights, and distance from anything else in Kepler (they all collectively agreed to avoid another H2Whoa incident) made it a perfect place to fight the Shadow.

Unfortunately, like every other abomination thus far, the Shadow did not want to die so easily. Nimbly dodging the majority of their attacks even in the small space of the bunker, making them twist and turn their bodies in all sorts of directions as if they were playing Twister and not trying to kill an otherworldly entity.

Duck just wants the damn thing to die already so he can go home and stop making a fool of himself already and by the looks on both Aubrey’s and Ned’s faces, he can tell they’re feeling the same way.

“I swear to god,” Aubrey groans in frustration when one of her fireballs misses the Shadow which slithers up the ceiling to stare down at them with its many multicolored piercing eyes, drawing out the last syllable. “Fuck you bombom!”

“Alright,” Ned interjects having finally caught his breath. “Maybe one of us can distract it while someone else can get a hit on it.”

“Sure, why don’t you go ahead and distract him,” Aubrey yells chucking another mote of fire at the ceiling which the shadow dodges easily, sending back another sphere of shadowy force in return.

“Well, I didn’t mean me!” Ned groans but takes another swing at the Shadow that skitters across the floor in retreat, making a strange echoing hissing as it moves.

Ned's eyes trail away from the Shadow, toward the safe room of the bunker. He points it out to the other two, “Look if we can get it in the room, the two of us can try and wail on it while Aubrey keeps guard outside.”

“Okay, great.” Duck says mid-swing, ignoring how Beacon chastises him for missing again. “Ned, just make sure the door doesn’t close behind us or we’ll probably get stuck or somethin’”

The Shadow trains its focus on Duck, diving toward him and he dodges, rolling toward the safe room making sure that it follows. Watching as Ned slips in behind them, enchanted cane in hand.

Before either of them can act, a pinprick light begins to gather at Beacon’s tip coalescing into a sphere of pure blinding energy that shoots straight forward toward the Shadow. The moment the light makes contact Duck cringes when an ear-piercing shriek echoes throughout the room as the Shadow is ripped apart from all the directions

“Beacon, what the hell? I didn’t know you could do that,” Duck says incredulously holding him up close for inspection.

“Yes, _Duck Newton_ ,” Beacon says his name as if it were a slur. “I could the entire time, but I thought it would be best to test your combat prowess. You disappointed me quite thoroughly and I decided that enough time had been wasted.”

Angry - and as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, slightly impressed - Duck immediately stows Beacon away again before he loses his shit. Behind him there’s a loud slam and he hopes with all his heart that it isn’t the sound of the door

When he looks at the door in horror to realize it has indeed closed behind them and through the thick steel he hears Aubrey’s muffled voice say, “Um, guys. I don’t know the code to open it from out here or anything.”

“ _Are you fucking kidding me_.”

He can hear Aubrey yank at the door’s handle from the outside, and from the inside he can see it budge the slightest bit, making Duck sigh so loud that he swears his spirit slips out of his body. “I’ll just um, go back to the lounge and get you some help, you two sit tight okay?”

“I mean, it’s not like we can do anything else but thanks, Aubrey,” Ned yells back and Duck wants to kick his stupid face in.

 

 

“So,” Duck starts to say, groaning as he stretches his now cramping legs out and braces himself for the long haul. “Just so we’re clear, the moment we get out of here I am going to kill you, Ned.”

“Okay, you know.” Ned shrugs sheepishly, wry smile on his face as he leans back casually again one of the safe room’s walls, head resting against his folded arms. “That is absolutely fair my friend, however I think instead of focusing on the less important things like who’s to blame or who got us in this situation, we should focus on conserving all of our energy otherwise we’ll freeze to death.”

Duck shoves an elbow into Ned’s side and the other man grunts. “It ain’t even that cold in here, you prick.”

“Oww,” Ned whines rubbing against the side Duck elbowed, his expression slightly hurt when he looks back at him. Duck doesn’t buy it for a moment. “What the hell was that for?”

“For being an ass and for getting us in this situation first place.”

“I wasn’t kidding though, it is pretty cold in here.” Ned shivers and pokes at the holes in his button-up shirt, a casualty from the fight with the Shadow who they learned had pretty sharp claws when physically cornered.

Duck shoots him a dirty look. “And whose fault is it that we’re in here in the first place?”

“Me,” Ned sighs and stares up at the ceiling. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

Duck sighs and takes off his ranger jacket gesturing for Ned to move in closer so that the two of them can share body heat. He’ll take the high road and have mercy on Ned, as upset as he is right now the other man is still his friend and admittedly it is pretty cold down in the bunker. Enough that he can feel it through the layers of his jacket and knitted sweater.

Ned takes the opportunity and scoots closer, laying his head on Duck’s lap with Duck’s jacket draped over his body like a makeshift blanket. At this Duck raises an eyebrow but says nothing and a heavy silence falls between the two of them.

“I’m still mad,” Duck grumbles, more to himself than anything.

“I know. Thanks for the jacket.”

“No problem, we’re still friends. Even if I do want punch you just a little,” Duck jokes and he can feel Ned chuckle in return. It falls quiet again and he’s the first to break the silence.

“Least we killed it, don’t know how much more of that I could take. Just getting it down here was a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah,” Ned agrees. “But God knows what else the gate is gonna throw at us. What’s next, a beast that attacks from withiiiinn!” He waves his hand for dramatic effect and imitates the narrator of one the old Saturday Night Dead flicks.

“God please don’t speak that into existence,” Duck says, only half-joking. The thought is legitimately mildly terrifying.

Ned gives a small shrug in his lap. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad it’s you I’m stuck in with.”

Duck is somewhat surprised to hear that. Sure, Ned’s his friend and all but the admission is still pretty strange, all things considered. “Really?”

“Yeah, I like Aubrey but you’ve seen her. I think both of us would have gone nuts in five minutes.”

Duck doesn’t want to disrespect Aubrey but finds himself hard-pressed to disagree. Aubrey isn’t the patient sort on a good day and he’s seen what she does when she gets bored around the lodge. Her antics involve far more fire than he'll ever be comfortable with as both a normal sensible human being with any sort of self-preservation and as a forest ranger with an active interest in not seeing the Mononghela set ablaze.

“Yeah, she probably would burn the place down somehow. I trust her and all, but I still get a little antsy at just how often she likes to whip out the flames whenever she’s got nothing to do”

“Yeah,” Ned hums thoughtfully “In a way, it’s kind of nice in here. Just the two of us... The past couple of months have been so crazy, it’s almost like a mini-vacation.”

“I mean…I guess?”

The conversation gradually dies out before the two of them drift into an easy sleep. The rest of the night passing without issue.

Hours later, light shines behind Duck’s eyelids, waking him from his slumber. Groggy he opens his eyes to the sight of Mama, Barclay, and Aubrey with a flashlight in hand. For some reason, seconds later, Aubrey breaks into laughter, and Duck is beyond confused before he looks down and realizes why.

Ned, during some point of the night, managed to wrap his arms around Duck’s torso. He also notes, with no small amount of disgust, that Ned’s gone and drooled through his sweater as well.

He sighs and shoots the rest of them a long-suffering look. “Well, thanks for coming before Ned ruins my sweater, I guess.”

 

Back at the lodge, every time she thinks Ned isn’t looking, Aubrey, waggles her eyebrows at Duck suggestively, a huge shit-eating grin creeping over her face.

Duck who has thoroughly had enough of everything at this point sighs and says, “Look, we’re two grown men. It was cold, we’re two friends, ain’t nothing about it.”

“Uh huh,” Aubrey sing songs waggling her eyebrows some more, her piercing moving along with them. “Nooooooootttthing about it at all~”

“Uh huh,” Duck repeats unimpressed, crossing his arms and fixing her a glare that does absolutely nothing to make her stop waggling her eyebrows. “And what about you and Dani huh?” he points out and the wind deflates out of Aubrey’s sails. She gives him an exaggerated look of betrayal and clutches a hand dramatically to her chest.

“I’m getting there, okay!”

**Author's Note:**

> title from the junior boys, "[banana ripple](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CFAatTMGfU)"


End file.
